Faerie Tales
by Twistedsystem009
Summary: Sev had never understood why Midgardian faerie tales always had happy endings. Faeries were liars, tricksters, mischief-makers. Her own faerie tale is dark, grim, hellish. It's life.
1. Chapter 1 Nightmares

FAERIE TALES

CHAPTER ONE

NIGHTMARES

* * *

On a high, thick branch of an old magnolia tree in an over grown field, there was a girl. She was fair, with pale skin and waist-length sheets of silver hair. Her violet eyes were fixed on the leaves swaying above her as she lay on the branch. She was humming something under her breath.

Her name was Sevada. Her mother had told her that it meant passion, and that was very true. Sev loved more than anyone She was not, however, naive. Sev had a heart of gold and a complex mind.

As she lay there, her slender fingers moved above her. Golden light that looked like dust clung to the leaves. They became greener, and flowers blossomed beneath them. Colourful ribbons wound themselves around the branches and hung down in forked ends. They twirled, reflecting the sunlight that streamed through the gaps in the leaves.

"Impressive."

The magic world shattered into pieces of golden dust as Sev flinched. She turned her head to see a boy about her age sitting on a nearby branch. "Thank you." she said in a lilting, accented voice. Her hair hung down from the branch like sheets of silk, swaying gently in the wind.

There was another boy climbing up. He was more muscular and blonde, whereas his brother was lean and hair as black as raven's feathers. Sev recognized them. They were princes.

The boy sitting across from her, Prince Loki, opened his mouth to say something, but there was a shout from below before he could speak.

"Sev!"

Sev sat up, leaning forwards to see between the branches. Her younger brother Jakob stood there. He looked nothing like Sev, but she didn't look like anyone. "Mum needs you back to help with dinner!"

A smile passed over Sev's lips. She landed on the branch below, like a bird out of flight. As she departed, Sev glanced upwards and called, " 'Til we meet again... my prince."

* * *

_The ground was soft beneath Sev's feet. It was like walking on cotton. She was clothed in a black dress made of flowy, light-weight fabric, while everything around her was the brightest white._

_ Ahead, there was a long dining table. It was heaped with platters of food. There were confections, cheeses, meats, and fruits. One in particular had a silvery skin that reflected a great magnolia tree. The skin slid off beneath Sev's finger tips, revealing ruined brown meat. She examined it, then set it down. The same happened with the rest of the foods. Everything spoiled beneath her fingertips. _

_ Panicking, Sev turned around. Water lapped gently at her feet as she watched suns rise and set, followed by Mistress Moon, in mere seconds. They sped up, bringing with them sunlight and grey clouds and rain and stars. She watched in awe. _

_ After nearly a thousand days and nights, the moon froze and became still overhead. It shone down its pale light onto Sev, and only Sev. The stars were clustered around it like pinpricks of silver blood. Sev was so transfixed that she didn't notice the wave coming towards her. _

_ It crashed over her and salt water began to fill her lungs. She gasped for breath and screamed, but the water was over her head. Her chest was tight, limbs becoming like lead. Then it all faded away. The water had washed away and left Sev's body on the shore. _

_ Silver hair was pillowed around her head. She lay there in the wet sand, chest still, completely silent. Her violet eyes were fixed on the sky, where the horizon was painted with blood._

Sev awoke shrieking. Her screams echoed throughout the house with no response. She grasped the sheets tightly, eyes wide, a light sheen of sweat on her face. Her gaze wandered to the sky, where the moon seemed to grin cruelly down at her. Sev pulled the drapes closed and began to walk down the hall, the floorboards creaking beneath her pale, dainty feet.

The door to her mother's room was ajar. Sev looked inside. Her mother lay with all of the linens thrown aside. The rise and fall of her chest was subtle, but there.

"Sev,"

Sev gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth as she spun around. Jakob stood behind her, eyes wide with shock. "Sev, I heard a scream."

"I had a nightmare."

"No one screams like that after a nightmare."

Sev scanned her brother's face in the darkness. She could see the outline of his face, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He was right. Her voice was still shaky and breaths still shallow.

"I'll be fine."

The contour of Jakob's lips made a frown. Sev walked past him, to the end of the hall were her bedroom door was. It was thrown wide open; she had been in such a rush to get out from under the eye of the moon that she hadn't bothered to close it.

Stepping inside and pulling it to, Sev turned and whispered, "Goodnight, Jakob."


	2. Chapter 2 Grimm

FAERIE TALES

CHAPTER TWO

GRIMM

* * *

Early morning sunlight shone through the stained glass windows of the library. Dusty shelves were stacked with books all the way to the high-vaulted ceilings. They had both fading metallic covers and old leather ones. Sev ran her fingers over one book in particular. It was a collection of Midgardian stories called _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. Her slender fingertips brushed the peeling words and the illustration on the cover. It was of a child sitting at the bedside of a wolf, whom she had believed to be her grandmother. The tale ended with the child tricking the wolf into a drowning in a trough full of water.

On Midgard, faerie tales were told as joyful stories with happy endings, but Sev had never understood it. Faeries were tricksters, liars, mischief-makers. This book, however, was not at all sweet. It was dark. The endings were grim.

_Grimm's Fairy Tales._

Sev left the library around midday. She emerged into the sunlight, taking a deep breath of fresh air. The building was surrounded by trees that allowed light through the gaps in their leaves. It was cool and quiet there. Perfection. Solitude.

A teenage boy sat on the stone steps, a book in his lap. Sev took a seat beside him. She leaned towards him and tilted her head to scan the page, silver hair falling over her shoulders.

"What are you reading?"

The boy looked up, just noticing Sev's presence. His emerald eyes grazed over her, then returned to her violet gaze.

"The _History of Magic. _Volume three."

Loki closed the leather-bound book, sticking his thumb in between the pages to keep his place. "Have you read it?"

"Yes." replied Sev, balancing herself on the heel of her hand. She tossed her hair over her shoulders, cocking her head to one side. "What's that?"

Sev held a book in one hand. It had a green cover and maroon spine, with the words _A Treasury of Hans Christian Anderson _printed in gold. It was another Midgardian book.

"Faerie tales from Midgard." Sev answered. She flipped through the pages, brushing over the words with pale fingertips. Loki didn't respond; he was studying her with narrowed eyes. "Have we met before?"

"Once." A faint smile formed on Sev's blood-red lips. "My name is Sevada." Something shone in Loki's eyes. "I would've thought I'd remember someone as... oddly lovely as yourself." As he spoke, he brushed her cheek with two fingers.

"If you're trying to seduce me, it won't work." said Sev, still smiling. Loki took away his hand, quirking an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm trying to bed you?"

"You have a reputation for that kind of thing."

Loki chuckled, running a hand through his jaw-length, black hair. "Do I?" There was a silence in which Sev watched him, and he gazed out at two doves sitting on a tree branch. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen winters."

"That's quite young."

Sev rolled her eyes playfully. "My soul is old." she said simply. Loki smiled. There was a certain mischievous quality to it. "Mine too."

"Brother!"

Another teenage boy came striding over. He was tall; blonde and muscular. He was Thor.

Sev turned her head. She and Loki had been sitting quite close. Their faces had been less than a foot apart. Thor's eyes lingered on her for a bit longer than necessary.

"Yes?" Loki's prompt had an annoyed undertone. "Father was wondering where you were."

"Where I am, where I've been, where I'll always be," Loki said in a dull, yet still silky, voice. "_here._" He spread his arms to indicate the area around him. "The library?"

"No, you idiot."

Sev chuckled, rising to her feet. She had picked up that Loki meant here as in this world. Thor, however, had not.

"My princes," Sev inclined her head towards Loki and Thor. She started to walk away, holding _Hans Christian Anderson _with her fingers wrapped around the spine. As she reached the gravel road that led back into the forest and back to the gardens, she gave a small wave.

"Farewell."

* * *

**Sorry this chapter was a bit short. The next ones will be longer. I just wanted to say really quickly that I picture the library as this stone building with a large, curved doorway with no door in a circle of trees. You have to take a gravel path that begins in the gardens and takes you into the forest, then eventually to the library. I felt that that was important to share with you. Aurevoir! **

** (Also, in the first two chapters so far, their ages change. In the first one, they're eleven, and in the second they're fifteen. Next chapter, they're eighteen/nineteen and then twenty-one for the rest of the time. This is with the exception of Jakob, of course, who is one year younger than Sev. I couldn't find a way to fit that into the story properly, so there.)**


	3. Chapter 3 A Lullaby To Lull You To Death

FAERIE TALES

CHAPTER THREE

A LULLABY TO LULL YOU TO DEATH

* * *

"_All the people looked in horror at the white skull that was loosened from the black earth. Now they knew that the dead man had been a murderer. _

"_The queen bee hummed a song about the flowers' revenge and about the little elf that may live within even the tiniest leaf and can expose and avenge evil._"

Sev closed the book. She brushed back her mother's dark hair, which was damp with sweat. The woman smiled weakly. "Sing to me, Sevada."

"The sky is dark and the hills are white as the storm-king speeds from the north to-night;" Sev's voice was soft and smooth. She grasped her mother's hand, the other on top of the book that rested on her thigh.

"And this is the song the storm-king sings, as over the world his cloak he flings..." Sev's voice began to wobble and crack as her mother's eyes closed. "Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep; he rustles his wings and gruffly sings: sleep, little one sleep."

Sev took a deep breath. Her voice broke as she continued, not wanting to accept it. "On yonder mountain-side a vine clings at the foot of a mother pine; the tree bends over the trembling thing, and only the vine can hear her sing."

"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep; what shall you fear when I am here? Sleep, little one sleep."

* * *

Snow fell on Asgard when Sev went to visit her mother. She brought with her a bouquet of crimson roses, the last of the summer. They stuck out like blood splatters against the white. Tears fell onto them, sliding off of the petals and sinking into the snow that blanketed her mother's grave.

Sev wasn't sad. She knew that her mother had suffered, only insisting on drawing out her death to stay with children. The woman went through hell for love. Sev liked to think that she would've done the same, but she wasn't strong enough.

"Sev,"

Jakob's voice broke Sev's reverie. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes momentarily, before turning to him. With a nod from her, they departed, never looking back.

* * *

A warm breeze blew across Sev's face as she lay beneath the old apple tree in the orchard near her childhood home. She had long since abandoned the house; the memories were too painful.

There was an apple in Sev's hand. It was red. Everything in her life was red.

The roses, the apple, her own blood.

The air smelled like jasmine. The white blossoms were everywhere. They were sweet smelling, but so small. How could something so miniscule be so loud?

It was the same with the birds. The tiny ones, the babies. Their cries could be heard all the way across the orchard. It was a symphony of need and longing. Need for their mothers, longing for their mothers.

Sev watched the leaves sway above her. Her lids began to flutter, until she fell into a restless slumber.

* * *

_There was darkness all around Sev, but she could feel salty ocean air burning her throat. It was heavy and damp. The waves slapped against the sand and washed over her toes. Sev knew what was going to happen. She could see the sun rising and setting behind her lids, but her feet were rooted to the ground._

_ When the wave fell over Sev, she didn't intend to struggle, but the motions were the same as the last dream. Water filled her lungs as she flailed, but her efforts were useless. She lay on the sand, eyes open, but there was only darkness. _

Sev bolted upright, eyes wide. She wasn't terrified, like the last time she had had the nightmare. The only thing that she felt was shock at being thrown back into reality. It sent a jolt through her entire body like she had been electrocuted.

Gathering herself, Sev rose to her feet and hurried down the road from the orchard back into the field. She needed to return to Jakob before nightfall. As she came to the end of the road, she saw a group of people carrying a coffin towards the city. Sev caught up to them, stopping one of the guards at the end of the line.

"What happened?" she demanded, brow creased. The guard pulled up his helmet. His face was grave. "The old man that lived in that house - over there - he died today." Sev swallowed hard. The house he had indicated was her old home.

Sev approached the cottage. It looked the same as it had when she had left it. A fire roared in the hearth, licking the bricks. There was a woven rug on the floor, in front of two parlor chairs. The dining table was still polished and shining in the candlelight. It was perfect. Sev went to her old room to find that everything was the same. She laid down her head to sleep.

When Sev awoke, she blinked rapidly, trying to remember where she was. She sat up, looking around.

The roof was sagging, the floor rotten. Heaps of rubble were everywhere. The bed that Sev had been sleeping on had a broken leg and yellowed sheets. She ran outside in panic, slamming the door behind her. It fell off of its hinges and the doorway collapsed in on itself. She spun around, and stifled a gasp.

"The sky is dark and the hills are white as the storm-king speeds from the north to-night."

Sev's mother stood across from her. She was young and lovely again. Her dark hair swayed around her shoulders, her smile was kind and eyes bright.

"And this is the song the storm-king sings, as over the world his cloak he flings..."

Her mother's skin grew pale, her eyes lifeless. The smile faded from her face. She continued to sing.

"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep; what shall you fear when I am here? Sleep, little one sleep."

Sev awoke screaming.


	4. Chapter 4 A Queen To Your King

FAERIE TALES

CHAPTER FOUR

A QUEEN TO YOUR KING

* * *

The sunset spread an ethereal glow over the gardens. The flowers opened their petals towards the light, begging for more. As it disappeared beneath the horizon, leaving a dusky strip in its place, the candles came to life.

Magic.

Sev finally looked up as the darkness settled and she could no longer see the words on the page of her book. She stood gracefully, her tall, thin figure merely a silhouette against the velvety blue night sky.

The stone halls that Sev walked were completely silent. They were dimly lit by braziers placed on the walls every ten feet or so. Sev could hear footsteps approaching her, but she couldn't see their owners.

"Oh!"

Sev stumbled backwards, her fingers brushing the stones as she looked for something to steady herself with. She had turned a corner and walked straight into something hard and solid. A large hand grabbed her waist, pulling her back onto her feet. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

Sev stepped away, her eyes trailing up to the man's face. It was Thor. Before she could say anything, more footsteps approached.

"Brother, this is madness."

Loki stopped speaking when he saw Sev. She took a few more steps back, as she was still standing a bit too close to Thor. "What's madness?" she asked as Loki opened his mouth the comment on the sight.

"Nothing of your concern."

Sev arched one eyebrow, tilting her head ever so slightly. "Oh?"

"Brother is going to Jotunheim to confront Laufey."

"That _is _terribly foolish."

Thor mumbled something, brushing past Sev. As Loki as began to follow him, Sev grabbed his arm and whispered, "Be safe."

* * *

There was no time for a coronation when Loki was announced to be king. Thor was said to have been banished by Odin before he fell into Odinsleep. Sev was glad. Loki would make a fantastic king.

After a few days under Loki's rule, she decided to visit him. When he saw her enter the throne room, a grin broke out across his face. He met her halfway across the room, taking each of her hands.

"You're a king." Sev said, an enchanting, close-mouthed smile on her face. She looked up at him through her lashes with those piercing violet eyes. "A king without a queen."

Sev's expression softened as Loki knelt before her. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, making her shudder. "Will you be my queen?"

"Yes." answered Sev, pulling him close as he stood and joining their lips.

"Yes."

* * *

**Sorry for another short chapter. I'm going to write the fifth one before I post this, so you won't be left unsatisfied.**

** Aurevoir!**


	5. Chapter 5 The World's Most Beautiful Ros

FAERIE TALES

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL ROSE

* * *

"Good evening, love."

Two pale hands slid around Sev's waist, pulling her against something cold and solid. Loki's breath was cool against her skin. She tilted her head to allow him further access to her neck. He pressed a gentle kiss there, making an involuntary sigh of pleasure rush from her lips.

"It is now." Sev opened her eyes, gazing out at the ocean and the gardens. "_Bring her the world's most beautiful rose, the one that symbolizes the highest and purest love, and when her eyes see that flower, then she will not die._" she recited. Loki glanced down at her. "I've never heard that one."

"A Midgardian tale. The World's Most Beautiful Rose." Sev explained, turning to face him. He pulled her close, a smile tugging at his lips. As he leaned down to kiss her, he whispered, "You are my most beautiful rose."

* * *

The doors to the throne room opened with a loud screeching as they scraped the stone floors. Sev appeared behind them, her chest heaving. Thor and Odin stood at the end of the room. She approached them, brow creased. "What happened?"

"Loki... he fell into an abyss created by the destruction of the Bifröst."

Sev closed her eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She sunk her nails into Thor's arm, steadying herself. "Are you alright?" he asked softly. Sev shook her head.

"No, no... I... " she put a hand over her mouth, splaying out her fingers across his arm. There were red crescent shaped marks beneath them.

"I have to get out."

* * *

_Loki stood across from her, smiling. She reached out to touch him, but her fingers went straight through him. "Love," Sev said, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks. _

_ "Shh, shh." Sev felt a cold hand on her cheek, but the Loki before her hadn't moved. "Don't fret, my most beautiful rose." he murmured. A chill shot down her spine as a hand moved up it. She leaned her head against the invisible chest, swallowing hard. _

_ "We'll be together again. I promise, and I never break my promises."_

* * *

Months wore on and Loki never came. Sev didn't tell anyone about his promise, but only because they would say it was just a dream; she was grieving. It wasn't a normal dream. It felt so real. She could feel his cold skin, his lips on hers, the tears sliding down her cheeks, the vibration of his chest as he spoke. It _was_ so real.

Sev's only reason for living now was Jakob and Loki's promise. Her heart hurt - oh, it hurt so much, but she told herself the aching would be worth it.

No one could tear the petals off the most beautiful rose.


End file.
